Metzelburg was trying to kill any police officer that was in his way while he tried to escape from those trying to arrest him on Oct. 29, 2010.

“I was looking down the muzzle of his gun, watching the flash (of the shot) at me,” the detective with the Kent County Sheriff’s Office told Kalamazoo County Circuit Judge Pamela L. Lightvoet before Metzelburg’s sentencing on Monday. “He didn’t try to kill us as individuals. He tried to kill police officers, and that is scary.”

Metzelburg, 36, of Belding, was convicted by a jury of four counts of assault with intent to murder the four police officers who tried to arrest him that October afternoon, five counts of felony use of a firearm and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Before being sentenced, Metzelburg, using a walker and wearing dark glasses, apologized to the officers involved.

“It was not my intention to harm anyone,” he said.

Another officer, Deputy Lawrence Czarnowski with the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office, disagreed.

The Oct. 29 chase started when two Kent County deputies followed Metzelburg and his wife in the car they were in from Kent County into Kalamazoo County. After asking for help from the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office, the plan was to stop them as they came into Scotts.

The car, driven by Metzelburg’s wife, Denise, swerved around the police sport utility vehicle. John Metzelburg began firing the first of 30 to 40 of shots at deputies, and the couple began a 20-plus-minute chase that ended when Denise Metzelburg swerved the car into a tree outside of Three Rivers in St. Joseph County.

Denise Metzelburg was sentenced to four to 10 years in prison in January after pleading guilty to two counts of assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than murder against police officers who pursued her and her husband.

The case grabbed additional headlines when the two deputies, while searching for the Metzelburg vehicle, stopped Scotts resident Michelle Selbee and threw her on the ground. She has filed a federal lawsuit against the deputies and Kalamazoo County.